I held on to Monsieur Armel’s every word as he spoke, for I knew almost nothing about my maternal grandfather.
“After Moishe died, I bought his whole collection. Or at least I thought it was his entire collection...” Alex’s father said. “Actually, I bought everything directly from your mother.
“Your grandfather showed me this Haggadah only once, and I always wondered who had bought it...” He pointed to the book that Alex and I had just been looking at together. “It’s so rare and valuable, I knew he was offering it for a price few people could afford. But I would have taken great pains to buy it as an investment.”
“Well, he didn’t sell them,” I said, my voice now softening. “My mother took them for herself when he died.”
“Your mother...” His voice again changed to another key. This one almost wistful.
He looked up from the table and began to study me, scanning my features as though he recognized something familiar in them. “You have her eyes. That beautiful gray-green that shifts in the light.” His voice drifted for a moment.
“She was a beauty like you, and when she married your father, she shattered your grandfather’s heart.”
***
He closed the Haggadah and placed the other book beside it. “Let’s return to these in a bit...”
I smiled at him. Within only minutes of meeting him, I could see both the clinical expert and the warm father he was to Alex.
“Alex, why don’t you prepare a pot of tea for us. Bring over those little cookies Solomon’s wife baked for us this morning.”
“Yes, Papa,” Alex said. He smiled as he stood to oblige his father’s request.
Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the discreet counter with the single burner and sink tucked into the far side of the room. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Alex filled the kettle with water and began to prepare the tea.
“Come.” Monsieur Armel motioned for me to go to the desk where Alex had first been sitting when I arrived. “I’ll clear these papers and bring two more chairs.”
I followed him as he arranged the desk into a makeshift table with chairs. Then I sat down.
Alex arrived with a tray containing a plate of cookies and a pot of tea.
“At your service,” he joked as he placed down the tray. He poured the tea into three ceramic cups and then took a seat himself.
“Please take one, Solange,” his father said, moving the plate of cookies closer to me.
I smiled. They were the type of cookies I had always associated with my mother. In better times, one could always taste the luxurious taste of butter running through them. But the thumbprint of plum jam in the center was something that was typical in her baking. Now I wondered if there were other small things she did that had gone unnoticed by me, gestures she did privately in order to keep the connection to her past alive, even if only for herself.
Alex’s father smiled as I nibbled at the cookie.
“May I ask, Solange, did your mother share any stories with you about your grandfather, or her life in the Marais before she married your father?”
I shook my head no.
“I suspected as such...” A small sigh escaped from his lips. “It was probably not easy for her to talk about her family, after what happened once she married your father.
“The last time I saw your mother, she was pregnant with you, and she had sought me out to sell some of her father’s inventory. She was his only heir, and even though he had disowned her while he was living, he left everything to her at the time of his death.”
He studied me. “She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than you are now.”
I bit my lip. It was a bittersweet thought to imagineMamanat the cusp of motherhood.
“She came to me first, because she knew I had been your grandfather’s friend for years. And I told her I’d buy everything fromher... How funny she didn’t answer me when I inquired about the Barcelona Haggadah. Now over twenty years later, I know why. She had kept it for herself all along.”
“I don’t think she would have sold it for any price,” I said in her defense. “My mother kept things that were precious to her for reasons that transcended money.” I lowered my eyes. “Though I’m sure she knew it was worth quite a bit of money...”
“I would have paid handsomely for it,” he told me. “TheYisrael Zemirotis valuable, but certainly not as much as the Barcelona Haggadah. It’s priceless for many reasons. It’s not just the age and rarity of the book, it’s also the story of the people who created it.”
I raised an eyebrow.
